Scantily clad women, including one with a pregnant belly, cavort with singer Jacquie Neville in The Balconies’ provocative new video to go with the song, War. While the choreography is bewitching, the scene that stuck with me longest was the sight of the dark-haired frontwoman tearing into a slab of raw meat, blood oozing from her lips.

Yuck, I thought, but at the same time: What a great song. The new single is the first glimpse of the music the Ottawa-formed rockers have been working on for the last two years. The full album comes out in the fall.

With her ethereal wail of a voice slung against the big, anthemic chorus of War, Neville sounds like a cross between Kate Bush and Pat Benatar, which suits the 28-year-old singer-songwriter-guitarist. As for the slab of meat, she calls it “probably the most disgusting thing I’ve ever had in my life.

“I’m definitely vegetarian now,” Neville said with a laugh. “We were using fake blood and it tastes like mint so the combination of me biting into this beautiful sirloin steak with the minty blood was disgusting. But it looks great. It was totally worth it. Anything for art.”

To her, the beef was a “playful and fun” way to add a theatrical flair to the video, which she choreographed and executive-produced. “I grew up listening to Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath. Ozzy ripped heads off bats,” she points out. “It’s funny because some people are more shocked by a woman doing that than a man. To me, it’s not shocking. It’s theatrical. I don’t take it as an act of violence.”

Meanwhile, the song itself, with its line, ‘Can we afford another war?’ could be construed as social commentary, although Neville says it was written more to express the internal struggle of a young artist.

“It’s challenging being an artist because I feel like society has outlined this path for people: You get married, get a job, get the house and then you do all these things. It’s a very appealing life because it’s comfortable and familiar. However, when you’re an artist, your brain doesn’t really operate in that way. It’s a very contradictory lifestyle.

“I’ve always battled with that,” she adds. “Do I keep living my life as an artist and continue that free spirit path or do I allow myself to be tempted by this secure, stable life. In the video, I really wanted to talk about body image and allude to the whole pregnancy thing (which) represents that kind of comfortable lifestyle. To me, my child is my art.”

This time, on The Balconies’ forthcoming second full-length effort, her art snowballed into a self-produced concept album named Rhonda, due for release this fall, with a companion project, a graphic novel, to follow. So who is Rhonda?

“She’s a fictional artist I created who is trying to find her best and truest and most honest self, despite all these obstacles she keeps encountering as an artist, whether it’s personal or business,” Neville explains. “Yes, you might see some parallels here with real life and the story. It’s definitely kind of an autobiography about the band’s journey, but I also wanted to create a fantasy element to it.”

For years, the band’s journey involved playing shows, up to 300 a year on both sides of the Atlantic, a pace that takes its toll. Neville and bandmate Liam Jaeger met and became a couple while studying classical music at the University of Ottawa a decade ago. They formed the band in 2008 with Neville’s brother, Stephen, who recently left the group, amicably, amid a change of priorities (he will be replaced by session musicians as necessary). Although Neville and Jaeger broke up almost five years ago, they’ve worked hard to keep the band going.

“There’s nothing harder than breaking up and then saying, ‘Okay, I’ll see you on tour tomorrow.’ We were on tour for two months after breaking up,” Neville recalls. “That’s a very unique and odd situation to be in. But I think what worked for me and Liam is we just care about each other so much. Whether or not we’re romantically involved, we just want the best for one another and we didn’t want to let go of something we’ve worked so hard for.”

The pair also have a side project, a punk band called Cola Heads, that features Jaeger on drums and Neville on guitar. “It’s been really fun,” Neville says. “That kind of fun, youthful energy has definitely infiltrated its way into The Balconies’ live shows. It’s higher in energy than before … if that’s even possible. And we’re very excited about the album. We’re older. We’re wiser. We’re still hungry. It feels very fresh.”

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